In infinite wisdom Louis Scheffer answered:

Rich <someone@somewhere.com> writes:

I don't know how much the Allen Telescope is going to cost,
or who's going to pay for it, or it's operation and staffing.

The Allen Telescope is paid for by Paul Allen (of Microsoft),
with smaller contributions from Nathan Myhrvold, also of
Microsoft, and contributions from the SETI institute and others.
Berkeley will probably run it, but in return they get a state
of the art radio telescope for much less than they would otherwise
pay.  [Note that this telescope will be used for radio astronomy
and SETI at the same time.  That's one of its beauties.]

Am I to understand that Berkely will pay for it's operation
and staffing? Do you know what they plan to use it for?

I understand that together Paul Allen and Nathan Myhrvold are
donating 12.5 million. That seems to be about half the $25 million
dollars you say it will cost. Where does the rest come from?

But I don't expect it could be classified as a "tiny or
insignificant" cost. YMMV.

It's not tiny, but it is insignificant.

Maybe to you it is.

The total cost,
spread over about 5 years, is in the range of $25M. The next big public radio telescope (ALMA) is costing taxpayers about $50 million this year alone, and will take many years to complete, and will end up at least on order of magnitude more expensive.

And don't think I don't question these costs as well. But Alma
is partly funded by the the ESO and partly by the NSF. I've not
found what the split is.

http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/alma_telescope_030305.html

    ALMA

    Plans for the new telescope, called the Atacama Large
    Millimeter Array (ALMA), are the result of years of
    preparation on both sides of the Atlantic. That
    preparedness came to a head last week, when the European
    Southern Observatory  (ESO) and the National Science
    Foundation (NSF) agreed to fund the $552 million project's
    construction in Chile's high Atacama Desert.

It seems very similar to the Allen Telescope.

The Allen array will end up costing less than 1/4 of the cost of the last radio telescope (Greenbank), which was built entirely with public funds.

We shall see. I've not noted that large projects tend to finish
on time and at the estimated cost. Perhaps SETI is immune from
this aspect of large projects, we shall see.

The total cost of the Allen Array will be less than 1/4 of
what NSF spends on new astronomy facilites *every year*.  It is less than 1% of NASAs yearly expenditure on astronomy.
SETI is not a big project, even in the astronomy world.

NASA is another money pit. Federal expendatures have no relationship
to tax receipts. And the Shuttle was *supposed* to be an economical
launch vehicle, fa.

And every once in a while, someone gets a brilliant idea and everything changes for the better.

The Allen telecope array, in many people's minds, is exactly
such an idea.  It's MUCH cheaper than any comparable telescope,
and for many purposes much more useful.

How does it compare to the ALMA? But I note that were the Allen
telescope to be built in Chile, it's costs would be much greater
as well, part of the difference is location.

They say that the view is much better there. How is the situation
in Hat Creek WRT interference?

And who is driving this?
The SETI Institute, with private funds.

Well, you've already mentioned Berkeley, which is not a private
orginization. So unless I misunderstand something, this cannot be
totally true.

    Lou Scheffer

Rich